![]() ![]() When I think of representing San Jose, I’m really happy that everybody is comfortable in that store, no matter what your demographic is. You get the suits coming in, you get the young kids, the hipsters, old people, all ethnicities. “I see all of San Jose come into this store. “What I’m probably most proud of is the fact that we really don’t even think about demographics,” Johnson says. It’s a more simple business model that attracts everyone from the upper crust to the dirges of local literati. Because once you start to get static, you’re not going to last very long.”īeing a used bookstore with a low overhead, Recycle was never supposed to function as a full-blown cultural hub like Kepler’s, Printers Inc., or City Lights. “It keeps the store a vibrant, moving, dynamic place where people are always going to see something different,” Johnson says. Piles and piles of recently acquired European history books might sit on the floor for several weeks, while an enlarged Buddhism section could appear a few months later. ![]() There could be a slew of antiquarian travel books showing up one month, or there might be an entire cart of sheet music lurking in the corner. If one prowls around the store on a regular or even semi-regular basis, parts of the stock always seem to evolve, almost like an organism ejecting unnecessary ingredients and rejuvenating itself to survive. Recycle’s online presence is also substantial, increasing from 15 percent of the business many years ago to about 35 percent nowadays. By listening to what readers are asking about, by focusing on what customers are actually buying, the store remains fresh. He always pays attention to what customers are looking for and then adapts. By the time Johnson came along and relocated the store, I was just happy the place wasn’t closing.Įver since then, Johnson says, the job has required regularly clearing out parts of entire sections and divesting specific subsections that no longer sell. The path, the browsing, the journey itself was the destination. One didn’t need a destination, a goal, or anything to achieve. Like any great used bookstore, browsing became an adventurous expedition akin to enlightenment. You’d see college students, professors, punks, drunks, scholars and everyone between. ![]() Recycle’s Santa Clara Street location was an amazing store. They really wanted to keep the bookstore in San Jose.”įor me personally, I spent years patronizing the Santa Clara Street location, beginning in my teens, when I’d take the bus downtown to hit up Twice Read Books, Recycle and the comic shops and record stores that dotted the gritty landscape. “The city took a chance on me,” Johnson says. Both Hayes and the city of San Jose backed the loan enabling Johnson to make it work. Johnson took over the business in October of that year, but he couldn’t hammer out a reasonable lease with the new landlord, so he found a new location on The Alameda, where the store sits to this day. The stock wasn’t rotating like it used to and Joan Hayes began looking for a new buyer. By 1998, the store had begun to stagnate. Following the San Fernando location, the store eventually settled on Santa Clara Street for about 20 years, in the building now occupied by 2nd Story Bakeshop and Hibiscus Studio. Old-timers still talk about that basement. Initially opening on South First Street, Recycle then moved to a location on San Fernando, where it became known for a distinguished and legendary basement. With 3,800 square feet of used books on shelves, floors, carts and boxes, the place always seems to provide a diverse literary experience.įor the last 19 years, proprietor Eric Johnson has owned and operated the store, but when Joan and Pat Hayes first started the original business in 1967, they probably had no idea it would still exist 50 years later. Golden anniversaries have been in the news these days, so allow me to shout from the mountaintop-or at least a street corner-about Recycle Bookstore on The Alameda. Recycle Bookstore has had several homes, but the one constant has always been the vast, eclectic selection of used books. ![]()
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